The Doctor Stories Read online

  The baby no better. Won’t eat, said the man in answer to my first question.

  How are its bowels?

  Not so bad.

  Does it vomit?

  No.

  Then it is better, I objected. But by this time the mother had heard us talking and came in. She seemed worse than the last time. Absolutely inconsolable. Doctor! Doctor! she came up to me.

  Somewhat irritated I put her aside and went in to the baby. Of course it was better, much better. So I told them. But the heart, naturally was the same.

  How she heart? the mother pressed me eagerly. Today little better?

  I started to explain things to the man who was standing back giving his wife precedence but as soon as she got the drift of what I was saying she was all over me again and the tears began to pour. There was no use my talking. Doctor, you good doctor. You do something fix my baby. And before I could move she took my left hand in both hers and kissed it through her tears. As she did so I realized finally that she had been drinking.

  I turned toward the man, looking a good bit like the sun at noonday and as indifferent, then back to the woman and I felt deeply sorry for her.

  Then, not knowing why I said it nor of whom, precisely I was speaking, I felt myself choking inwardly with the words: Hell! God damn it. The sons of bitches. Why do these things have to be?

  The next morning as I came into the coat room at the hospital there were several of the visiting staff standing there with their cigarettes, talking. It was about a hunting dog belonging to one of the doctors. It had come down with distemper and seemed likely to die.

  I called up half a dozen vets around here, one of them was saying. I even called up the one in your town, he added turning to me as I came in. And do you know how much they wanted to charge me for giving the serum to that animal?

  Nobody answered.

  They had the nerve to want to charge me five dollars a shot for it. Can you beat that? Five dollars a shot.

  Did you give them the job, someone spoke up facetiously.

  Did I? I should say I did not, the first answered. But can you beat that. Why we’re nothing but a lot of slop-heels compared to those guys. We deserve to starve.

  Get it out of them, someone rasped, kidding. That’s the stuff.

  Then the original speaker went on, buttonholing me as some of the others faded from the room. Did you ever see practice so rotten. By the way, I was called over to your town about a week ago to see a kid I delivered up here during the summer. Do you know anything about the case?

  I probably got them on my list, I said. Russians?

  Yeah, I thought as much. Has a job as a road worker or something. Said they couldn’t pay me. Well, I took the trouble of going up to your court house and finding out what he was getting. Eighteen dollars a week. Just the type. And they had the nerve to tell me they couldn’t pay me.

  She told me ten.

  She’s a liar.

  Natural maternal instinct, I guess.

  Whisky appetite, if you should ask me.

  Same thing.

  O.K. buddy. Only I’m telling you. And did I tell them. They’ll never call me down there again, believe me. I had that much satisfaction out of them anyway. You make ’em pay you. Don’t you do anything for them unless they do. He’s paid by the county. I tell you if I had taxes to pay down there I’d go and take it out of his salary.

  You and how many others?

  Say, they’re bad actors, that crew. Do you know what they really do with their money? Whisky. Now I’m telling you. That old woman is the slickest customer you ever saw. She’s drunk all the time. Didn’t you notice it?

  Not while I was there.

  Don’t you let them put any of that sympathy game over on you. Why they tell me she leaves that baby lying on the bed all day long screaming its lungs out until the neighbors complain to the police about it. I’m not lying to you.

  Yeah, the old skate’s got nerves, you can see that. I can imagine she’s a bugger when she gets going.

  But what about the young girl, I asked weakly. She seems like a pretty straight kid.

  My confrere let out a wild howl. That thing! You mean that pimply faced little bitch. Say, if I had my way I’d run her out of the town tomorrow morning. There’s about a dozen wise guys on her trail every night in the week. Ask the cops. Just ask them. They know. Only nobody wants to bring in a complaint. They say you’ll stumble over her on the roof, behind the stairs anytime at all. Boy, they sure took you in.

  Yes, I suppose they did, I said.

  But the old woman’s the ringleader. She’s got the brains. Take my advice and make them pay.

  The last time I went I heard the, Come in! from the front of the house. The fifteen-year-old was in there at the window in a rocking chair with the tightly wrapped baby in her arms. She got up. Her legs were bare to the hips. A powerful little animal.

  What are you doing? Going swimming? I asked.

  Naw, that’s my gym suit. What the kids wear for Physical Training in school.

  How’s the baby?

  She’s all right.

  Do you mean it?

  Sure, she eats fine now.

  Tell your mother to bring it to the office some day so I can weigh it. The food’ll need increasing in another week or two anyway.

  I’ll tell her.

  How’s your face?

  Gettin’ better.

  My God, it is, I said. And it was much better. Going back to school now?

  Yeah, I had tuh.

  The Use of Force

  THEY WERE new patients to me, all I had was the name, Olson. Please come down as soon as you can, my daughter is very sick.

  When I arrived I was met by the mother, a big startled looking woman, very clean and apologetic who merely said, Is this the doctor? and let me in. In the back, she added. You must excuse us, doctor, we have her in the kitchen where it is warm. It is very damp here sometimes.

  The child was fully dressed and sitting on her father’s lap near the kitchen table. He tried to get up, but I motioned for him not to bother, took off my overcoat and started to look things over. I could see that they were all very nervous, eyeing me up and down distrustfully. As often, in such cases, they weren’t telling me more than they had to, it was up to me to tell them; that’s why they were spending three dollars on me.

  The child was fairly eating me up with her cold, steady eyes, and no expression to her face whatever. She did not move and seemed, inwardly, quiet; an unusually attractive little thing, and as strong as a heifer in appearance. But her face was flushed, she was breathing rapidly, and I realized that she had a high fever. She had magnificent blonde hair, in profusion. One of those picture children often reproduced in advertising leaflets and the photogravure sections of the Sunday papers.

  She’s had a fever for three days, began the father and we don’t know what it comes from. My wife has given her things, you know, like people do, but it don’t do no good. And there’s been a lot of sickness around. So we tho’t you’d better look her over and tell us what is the matter.

  As doctors often do I took a trial shot at it as a point of departure. Has she had a sore throat?

  Both parents answered me together, No … No, she says her throat don’t hurt her.

  Does your throat hurt you? added the mother to the child. But the little girl’s expression didn’t change nor did she move her eyes from my face.

  Have you looked?

  I tried to, said the mother, but I couldn’t see.

  As it happens we had been having a number of cases of diphtheria in the school to which this child went during that month and we were all, quite apparently, thinking of that, though no one had as yet spoken of the thing.

  Well, I said, suppose we take a look at the throat first. I smiled in my best professional manner and asking for the child’s first name I said, come on, Mathilda, open your mouth and let’s take a look at your throat.

  Nothing doing.

  Aw, come on
, I coaxed, just open your mouth wide and let me take a look. Look, I said opening both hands wide, I haven’t anything in my hands. Just open up and let me see.

  Such a nice man, put in the mother. Look how kind he is to you. Come on, do what he tells you to. He won’t hurt you.

  At that I ground my teeth in disgust. If only they wouldn’t use the word “hurt” I might be able to get somewhere. But I did not allow myself to be hurried or disturbed but speaking quietly and slowly I approached the child again.

  As I moved my chair a little nearer suddenly with one catlike movement both her hands clawed instinctively for my eyes and she almost reached them too. In fact she knocked my glasses flying and they fell, though unbroken, several feet away from me on the kitchen floor.

  Both the mother and father almost turned themselves inside out in embarrassment and apology. You bad girl, said the mother, taking her and shaking her by one arm. Look what you’ve done. The nice man …

  For heaven’s sake, I broke in. Don’t call me a nice man to her. I’m here to look at her throat on the chance that she might have diphtheria and possibly die of it. But that’s nothing to her. Look here, I said to the child, we’re going to look at your throat. You’re old enough to understand what I’m saying. Will you open it now by yourself or shall we have to open it for you?

  Not a move. Even her expression hadn’t changed. Her breaths however were coming faster and faster. Then the battle began. I had to do it. I had to have a throat culture for her own protection. But first I told the parents that it was entirely up to them. I explained the danger but said that I would not insist on a throat examination so long as they would take the responsibility.

  If you don’t do what the doctor says you’ll have to go to the hospital, the mother admonished her severely.

  Oh yeah? I had to smile to myself. After all, I had already fallen in love with the savage brat, the parents were contemptible to me. In the ensuing struggle they grew more and more abject, crushed, exhausted while she surely rose to magnificent heights of insane fury of effort bred of her terror of me.

  The father tried his best, and he was a big man but the fact that she was his daughter, his shame at her behavior and his dread of hurting her made him release her just at the critical moment several times when I had almost achieved success, till I wanted to kill him. But his dread also that she might have diphtheria made him tell me to go on, go on though he himself was almost fainting, while the mother moved back and forth behind us raising and lowering her hands in an agony of apprehension.

  Put her in front of you on your lap, I ordered, and hold both her wrists.

  But as soon as he did the child let out a scream. Don’t, you’re hurting me. Let go of my hands. Let them go I tell you. Then she shrieked terrifyingly, hysterically. Stop it! Stop it! You’re killing me!

  Do you think she can stand it, doctor! said the mother.

  You get out, said the husband to his wife. Do you want her to die of diphtheria?

  Come on now, hold her, I said.

  Then I grasped the child’s head with my left hand and tried to get the wooden tongue depressor between her teeth. She fought, with clenched teeth, desperately! But now I also had grown furious—at a child. I tried to hold myself down but I couldn’t. I know how to expose a throat for inspection. And I did my best. When finally I got the wooden spatula behind the last teeth and just the point of it into the mouth cavity, she opened up for an instant but before I could see anything she came down again and gripping the wooden blade between her molars she reduced it to splinters before I could get it out again.

  Aren’t you ashamed, the mother yelled at her. Aren’t you ashamed to act like that in front of the doctor?

  Get me a smooth-handled spoon of some sort, I told the mother. We’re going through with this. The child’s mouth was already bleeding. Her tongue was cut and she was screaming in wild hysterical shrieks. Perhaps I should have desisted and come back in an hour or more. No doubt it would have been better. But I have seen at least two children lying dead in bed of neglect in such cases, and feeling that I must get a diagnosis now or never I went at it again. But the worst of it was that I too had got beyond reason. I could have torn the child apart in my own fury and enjoyed it. It was a pleasure to attack her. My face was burning with it.

  The damned little brat must be protected against her own idiocy, one says to one’s self at such times. Others must be protected against her. It is social necessity. And all these things are true. But a blind fury, a feeling of adult shame, bred of a longing for muscular release are the operatives. One goes on to the end.

  In a final unreasoning assault I overpowered the child’s neck and jaws. I forced the heavy silver spoon back of her teeth and down her throat till she gagged. And there it was—both tonsils covered with membrane. She had fought valiantly to keep me from knowing her secret. She had been hiding that sore throat for three days at least and lying to her parents in order to escape just such an outcome as this.

  Now truly she was furious. She had been on the defensive before but now she attacked. Tried to get off her father’s lap and fly at me while tears of defeat blinded her eyes.

  A Night in June

  I WAS a young man then—full of information and tenderness. It was her first baby. She lived just around the corner from her present abode, one room over a small general store kept by an old man.

  It was a difficult forceps delivery and I lost the child, to my disgust; though without nurse, anesthetist, or even enough hot water in the place, I shouldn’t have been overmuch blamed. I must have been fairly able not to have done worse. But I won a friend and I found another—to admire, a sort of love for the woman.

  She was slightly older than her husband, a heavy-looking Italian boy. Both were short. A peasant woman who could scarcely talk a word of English, being recently come from the other side, a woman of great simplicity of character—docility, patience, with a fine direct look in her grey eyes. And courageous. Devoted to her instincts and convictions and to me.

  Sometimes she’d cry out at her husband, as I got to know her later, with some high pitched animalistic sound when he would say something to her in Italian that I couldn’t understand and I knew that she was holding out for me.

  Usually though, she said very little, looking me straight in the eye with a smile, her voice pleasant and candid though I could scarcely understand her few broken words. Her sentences were seldom more than three or four words long. She always acted as though I must naturally know what was in her mind and her smile with a shrug always won me.

  Apart from the second child, born a year after the first, during the absence of the family from town for a short time, I had delivered Angelina of all her children. This one would make my eighth attendance on her, her ninth labor.

  Three A.M., June the 10th, I noticed the calendar as I flashed on the light in my office to pick up my satchel, the same, by the way, my uncle had given me when I graduated from Medical School. One gets not to deliver women at home nowadays. The hospital is the place for it. The equipment is far better.

  Smiling, I picked up the relic from where I had tossed it two or three years before under a table in my small laboratory hoping never to have to use it again. In it I found a brand new hypodermic syringe with the manufacturer’s name still shiny with black enamel on the barrel. Also a pair of curved scissors I had been looking for for the last three years, thinking someone had stolen them.

  I dusted off the top of the Lysol bottle when I took it from the shelf and quickly checking on the rest of my necessities, I went off, without a coat or necktie, wearing the same shirt I had had on during the day preceding, soiled but—better so.

  It was a beautiful June night. The lighted clock in the tower over the factory said 3:20. The clock in the facade of the Trust Company across the track said it also. Paralleling the railroad I recognized the squat figure of the husband returning home ahead of me—whistling as he walked. I put my hand out of the car in sign of recognit
ion and kept on, rounding the final triangular block a little way ahead to bring my car in to the right in front of the woman’s house for parking.

  The husband came up as I was trying to decide which of the two steep cobbled entry-ways to take. Got you up early, he said.

  Where ya been? his sister said to him when we had got into the house from the rear.

  I went down to the police to telephone, he said, that’s the surest way.

  I told you to go next door, you dope. What did you go away down there for? Leaving me here alone.

  Aw, I didn’t want to wake nobody up.

  I got two calls, I broke in.

  Yes, he went away and left me alone. I got scared so I waked him up anyway to call you.

  The kitchen where we stood was lighted by a somewhat damaged Welsbach mantel gaslight. Everything was quiet. The husband took off his cap and sat along the wall. I put my satchel on the tubs and began to take things out.

  There was just one sterile umbilical tie left, two, really, in the same envelope, as always, for possible twins, but that detail aside, everything was ample and in order. I complimented myself. Even the Argyrol was there, in tablet form, insuring the full potency of a fresh solution. Nothing so satisfying as a kit of any sort prepared and in order even when picked up in an emergency after an interval of years.

  I selected out two artery clamps and two scissors. One thing, there’d be no need of sutures afterward in this case.

  You want hot water?

  Not yet, I said. Might as well take my shirt off, though. Which I did, throwing it on a kitchen chair and donning the usual light rubber apron.

  I’m sorry we ain’t got no light in there. The electricity is turned off. Do you think you can see with a candle?

  Sure. Why not? But it was very dark in the room where the woman lay on a low double bed. A three-year-old boy was asleep on the sheet beside her. She wore an abbreviated nightgown, to her hips. Her short thick legs had, as I knew, bunches of large varicose veins about them like vines. Everything was clean and in order. The sister-in-law held the candle. Few words were spoken.